House Republicans were forced to clarify Monday that they don’t actually want to fire Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas — just impeach him — after a line in their report released over the weekend caused an uproar from the White House.
The GOP-led House Homeland Security Committee dropped a full report on the impeachment of Cuban-born Mayorkas, 64, after voting along party lines to advance the process last week.
“This committee, through this article of impeachment, begins the process of expelling Secretary Mayorkas from his position for his failure to comply with his official duties,” said the report on page 127.
“The final House Republican impeachment report literally said their impeachment was about ‘ousting’ Secretary Mayorkas[.] Excuse me, what?” White House spokeswoman for oversight and investigations Ian Sams posted on Xseize the committee Republican rhetoric develops.
Alejandro Mayorkas said he would cooperate with congressional investigators. AP The questionable line on deportation is buried in the impeachment report. X/Ian Sams
The deportation reference came after Republicans quoted the late Harvard Professor Raoul Berger, a legal scholar on impeachment, in which he likened the process to deportation.
“To the extent that prosecution retains the aura of punishment that remains, it can be compared to deportation, which is accompanied by very painful consequences but, the Supreme Court held, ‘is not a punishment for a crime,'” Berger was quoted in the previous paragraph.
Sources within the committee confirmed to The Post that Republicans were only talking about removing Mayorkas from his job, not from the country.
White House spokesman Ian Sams is one of President Biden’s leading teachers for dismissing the GOP investigation. Getty Images
“Some on the left are sensationalizing this because there is no solid defense for secretary Mayorkas’ refusal to obey the law and his breach of public trust,” the person said.
“It is quite clear that the reference follows the passage in the previous paragraph, where the law professor only compared the penal aspects of prosecution and deportation,” the source added. “The language of the report is clear—Secretary Mayorkas should be prosecuted and removed from his position.‘”
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has supported the impeachment effort and a full House vote on the two articles is expected later this week.
Speaker Mike Johnson supported the impeachment effort. Getty Images
Republicans have charged Mayorkas with “deliberate and systemic refusal to obey the law” and “breach of the public trust.”
In particular, they have taken issue with his claims that the border is “secure” and that DHS has “operational control” over it.
The department has strongly rebuked the gambling, calling it an “unconstitutional and evidence-free prosecution.”
Republicans have long singled out Alejandro Mayorkas over the crisis on the southern border. Getty Images
“Mayorkas has repeatedly and consistently testified regarding the operational control and statutory definition of the term, which the administration has never achieved, versus the department’s use of the term. There is no basis to accuse him of lying,” DHS wrote in a scathing response memo last week.
DHS further argued that Mayorkas had been enforcing the law at the border, pointing to the number of undocumented immigrants “removed” as well as an increase in fentanyl seizures and arrests.
Mayorkas would become the first Cabinet secretary to be fired since Secretary of War William Belknap in 1876.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
